Melody's Choice
by wolfchic011
Summary: She has been imprisoned her whole life. She has been tortured and manipulated into a weapon. She cannot remember her captors. She doesn't know where she is. Or why. She only knows two things: He can help her if only she can find him. And when she finds him, she will kill him. 3-shot about young Melody and her journey during Day of the Moon. Spoilers!
1. Chapter 1: Escape

Upon finishing series 6, I caved and finally decided to write about young Melody. This will be a 3-shot about her early life. Fair warning to all, there are spoilers for series 6.

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Part 1: Escape

There were more words. Every night more words appeared, always the same message:

GET OUT, LEAVE NOW.

Carved into the walls, the ceilings, painted on every surface in huge, ominous letters:

GET OUT, LEAVE NOW.

She couldn't remember the first time she had seen those words. All she knew was that more kept coming. And she couldn't leave.

It was always the same, the warnings came, her memories failed, she cried with all her mind for someone, anyone to help her and no one came. And she would still be there the next morning for it all to start again.

But there was something different about tonight. The dreams had been less horrific, more solid in her mind.

Lightning flashed outside the window, illuminating a fading GET OUT warning. But she was not afraid this time.

She didn't understand it but she knew that she knew it. They were coming, the people in her dreams: the man in the black suit, the woman with fiery-hair. The people who could help her. The people who knew **him**.

The man who had many faces but never died. The one in every one of her dreams. The man who could end her suffering. The man who must die.

Why did he have to die? Why did she have to raise a gun on him? He could open her suit. The poison would be administered discreetly, intimately… He could set her free. He wouldn't even know he was doomed until it was too late… He had saved her. He was clever. She'd need a back-up plan, maybe three… He had smiled at her and spoken with her when no one else could. The deathblow had to be dealt twice or he wouldn't die….

Suddenly she was standing inside the long dormitory room. On the wall in front of her was a painted warning: LEAVE ME ALONE. The paint was still running down the wall.

Her heart should have been racing in fear. But the suit would not allow that. Why couldn't she remember coming here? Writing those words?

She wanted to cry. To scream. All she wanted was to curl up and cry but they wouldn't even let her do that. She did nothing unless they allowed her too. Her handlers. The ones that locked her inside the suit. The ones that ripped out her mind and forced their own thoughts in.

The suit began to walk. This was a path she knew well. But it was too early wasn't it? The night had barely begun…

She reached the familiar door. It was open this time. It was never open. It stayed shut unless she was entering or leaving.

The suit took her inside and the woman with fiery hair turned to face her. She was in the room. The Memory room it was called. A place of pain and suffering. A place where the dreams grew unbearable, so much so that she hardly remembered any of them. This place the suit took her every night.

The woman backed up against the bureau. "Who are you?" She asked. "I don't understand so just tell me who you are!"

The suit stopped. It allowed her to raise her visor and let the woman see her. She tried to speak, but the suit wouldn't let her. The red-haired woman's expression softened as she took in her face and the bullet wound she had caused in the helmet.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shoot you. I'm glad I missed." The suit began to walk again. "But you killed the Doctor. Or you… you're gonna kill him." Was that the man? The one who she had to find?

"But who are you?" The woman asked. "Just please tell me cause, I don't understand!" The woman pleaded.

"Please help me!" Her voice ripped free from the suit's control. "Help me! Please."

How was her voice free? The suit could not be disobeyed. She could barely think what she wanted let alone speak. But she was speaking. She was in control of the suit!

The woman's gaze shifted behind her and a terrified look crossed her face. There was a strange noise. A noise she had heard before… the noise that always came before the pain, how could she ever have forgotten it? She had to escape… The woman screamed.

She was running from that room. Running. Running on her own two legs.

As the realization hit her, she stumbled and almost fell flat on her face. She was _free_. She leaned heavily on the wall, drawing breath after breath. Her heart was racing. She was in control.

Slowly, she raised her right arm. Then her left. There was no resistance. No pain. No _other_ in her mind.

How had she gotten out of the suit?

The sound of hurried footsteps set her heart racing again. She ducked behind the corner, into the shadows. She consciously breathed more quietly; oh she would never stop loving this, being in control, making her own decisions. The footsteps retreated down the corridor. Then there was pounding on a door and a man shouting.

He was trying to get into the Memory room. Her heart seized up in fear. What was he going to do when he didn't find her there?

More shouts, more footsteps. The newcomers thundered up the stairs, heading for the Memory room. They were looking for her. They would take her back, tie her down and hook her up to that thing again.

Lightning flashed outside, throwing her shadowy corner into sharp relief. She didn't have much time before they'd start searching the corridors for her. She had no way of getting out, little chance of surviving if she ran away. She tried not to cry.

What was she going to do? Where could she go?

"_Melody…_" She froze at the voice, fear seizing her. She tried to crawl further into the shadows but the lightning quickly destroyed them. They were coming. They would restrain her mind, torture her…

But all her fear was forgotten as not a person but a swirling cloud of golden mist drifted into view along the corridor. She stared at it, completely intrigued. The cloud stopped right in front of her face, right at eye level, twisting and falling in on itself. She stared as the golden threads of light swirled in endlessly complex patterns. She wanted nothing more than to reach out to touch them, trace them with her fingers, feel them sing in her mind…

The voice that spoke from the heart of the cloud once again made her freeze but not in fear this time. "_You have been strong Melody Pond. But for what is to come, I need you to also be brave and clever."_

The golden mist began to drift slowly down the dark corridor, away from the Memory room. Its soft, gentle light illuminated the walls.

"_Follow me child… I know a place…"_

She took a step after the mist. "Who are you?" She asked.

"_You will be safe from them there…_"

"But who are you?"

The golden mist did not respond with words. Instead, it touched her mind. Ordinarily, any such touch would have sent her reeling backwards, internally screaming and rebelling, trying to keep her mind safe. But this was not an ordinary touch. It was soft, reassuring. Comforting. Almost… motherly. It did not try to intrude; it did not force her to submit.

It was an odd feeling. But a good one. She had no idea who or what this mist was. But she trusted it.

So little Melody followed the golden mist into the dark and the rain away from the place of nightmares walking unsteadily on her own legs for the first time in years.

High in the window, a creature no one could remember watched silently.


	2. Chapter 2: Sanctuary

Part 2: Sanctuary

It was dark this time when the mist awoke her. "_Melody… child of water._"

She groaned and rolled over, forcing her eyes open. "Yes?"

"_Melody… child, I'm back._"

"Yeah… I get it…" She sat up and rubbed her eyes. The familiar mist floated in front of her: as intricate and confusing, yet as simple as ever. Its soft light dulled a little of the ache in her eyes.

It had been almost four months since her escape from **that** place. The mist had led her north, drifting slowly in front of her as she walked hundreds of miles through cities and countryside, across rivers and through forests. It had taken her almost a month to reach New York City. And the mist had been there the whole time.

Then it had vanished, leaving her alone in the basement of an ancient warehouse. She had been without its company for weeks, struggling to keep herself warm at night, to scrounge for food in the city dumpsters. Running away from dogs and policemen and other children.

The mist swirled down to her eye level and she couldn't help feeling like she was being watched by a million eyes all at once.

"_Child, I've come to talk._"

"I don't want to talk." But she couldn't very well roll over and go back to sleep now, not with the mist here. It would never let her do that; she'd already tried more than once.

"_Child, you must understand. I am doing this for you._"

She pulled her thickest blanket up around her shoulders. "I know what you're trying to do." She told it, burrowing down inside the blanket. "What if I don't want it?" She had been on the brink of starvation when the golden mist had finally returned. After that, it had been there every night without fail, telling her where to find blankets, guiding her to food, keeping her out of trouble. And almost every night, it would try to talk her out of wanting to kill him.

A single wisp of the cloud, delicately brushed her cheek. Even though she knew what was coming, she didn't flinch away. One of his faces sprang into her mind. This one was tall and skinny, with very short hair and very large ears. "_He can save you._"

Her whole body contorted. "I have to kill him!" She screamed, her voice bouncing around the old cement walls. Her fists clenched, wanting a gun, a weapon, anything to erase him forever.

The mist swirled slower, the image in her head still holding. "_No, you don't._" She gasped for breath, trying to will her muscles to unclench. She moaned in pain and frustration while the mist gently soothed her.

This was the way the talks always went: it would speak so gently, so simply and then show her one of his faces. The face would trigger her shouting, or a screaming fit, or a splitting headache, all she wanted was to find him and tear his limbs apart bone by bone. And the mist would keep speaking in her mind, in that gentle, soothing voice. Trying to make the pain go away, trying to make her relax. "You can't understand!" She sobbed at the face in her mind. "If I kill him… then everything's alright. Then the pain goes away. Everything…. Everything I've been through just goes, just leaves!" She was crying in full now but still the face was not taken away. Tonight would not be an easy one.

"_Melody, child. Now you know that's not true._" Another wisp brushed her cheek but another face did not appear._ "They've gotten inside your head Melody. Everything they've planted there is a lie. Now you're nothing more than a puppet to them. A puppet who will do the one thing her masters command without question or hesitation. She will kill him._" She trembled but the mist still did not let her go."_You've been trained and conditioned and programmed so that when you hear his voice or see his faces, the first thing you'll do is pull a gun on him. Try to poison him. Anything along those lines. For no reason. That's what you've been conditioned to do. But think child. Fight it. He doesn't have to die."_

She hiccuped and wiped her nose. "My whole life… I was in absolute torture, absolute hell. And all because of him." She glared at the face in her mind. "He's the one who caused it." She looked past his face, to where the mist was watching her. "If he dies, then I'm free, right? We're all free."

"_No child. If he dies, it will all get so much worse._"

She wailed and clutched her head, trying to shake the image free. "I don't want to kill him…" The imaged changed: now he was rail-thin with hair that stood up and glasses hiding eyes full of pain and anger. "I don't want to… but I have too!"

"_You can change child. You decide if he lives or dies._"

She looked up. There was the familiar snap. It was all so simple. "He dies. He has to die."

The mist backed away a little. "_Come back Melody… come back._"

The pain was gone. All she had to do was pull the trigger. "He can be killed. He's just a man."

The cloud flared suddenly and became an enormous ball of flames. "_No he's not. He's more than a man. He's everything."_ She fell backward, all thoughts of killing and faces leaving her mind as the voice filled it with its sad, sorrowful words. The flames fell back to simple bursts of fire but the power was still there, ready to strike out if need be.

"_I know him. And I know he wouldn't want this. I know that he is kind, and gentle and caring. And everything he does, he does for the best of reasons. He never thinks of himself first. Always of others, others like us. Everything he does, he does alone. And he never falters, he never gives up and he never backs down._"

She stared. The mist seemed to have stopped turning. The voice in her head sounded so broken, so lost. Was this really all because of him?

The mist floated close again and looked her in the eyes. "_One day, Melody, you'll need him. I can see that. One day you'll find him. And one day, you'll be given the chance to kill him, not once , not twice but several times. And when those times come, I hope you can look back and think about them. That you're not just… you're not just some monster. You're not just there to kill him. I hope… that you'll give him another chance and that you'll see him for what he really is and not just what he appears to be._"

But that still wouldn't change everything she'd been through. Everything she'd suffered because of him. It wouldn't erase the pain, destroy the murderous voice in her head. "Not unless you know some other way to erase the past."

The mist convulsed slightly and the voice lightened considerably. "_Believe me, the Doctor has a thing for changing the past._"

She was quiet, but she knew the mist could hear the doubt in her mind.

"_If I can't convince you, there are two more who might. People close to you, who love him and trust him._"

She wiped her nose with her sleeve. "Who?"

The mist touched her again but this time the faces it showed her were not faces of him."_Find your parents young Song… let them care for you… perhaps they can show you who he really is. And what he means to so many people._" The mist backed away and the faces faded."_Perhaps they can show you the love you were denied as a child, because of who you are. Perhaps you can learn to love in return… Perhaps you can be everything that he needs, instead of everything that he fears."_

She gulped down a tearful knot in her throat. "Are you saying that when I meet him, I might not kill him?"

"_I'm not saying anything Melody. All I'm mentioning is that there's a choice. There will always be a choice. To run or to not run. To trust or not trust. You won't know until the right moment but when you do, I hope you'll make the right choice._"

"But what if I don't kill him? What if I just… never meet him? Then I can never kill him."

She flinched as the mist flared again. "_Don't you dare. No matter what, don't you dare leave him all alone. He deserves so much more than what this world has given him. So much more than anyone could ever give him in return._" It softened slightly, returning to a delicate cloud."_Remember Melody, you might be the one who can give him those things. Or at least some of them._"

It drifted away from her. "_Goodnight Melody Pond._" It vanished without a trace but left a single, tiny glowing globe for light.

Still sniffling, she lay back down and curled up into her blankets.

She hated being called that. Melody Pond was just a name. Something that she was called, something that labeled her. It was not her. She didn't have a name. She was nothing.

Her parents: Amy and Rory Pond had abandoned her. They hadn't wanted her. They weren't even alive yet. _But still…_

If everything she'd thought to be the truth was a lie… Maybe her parents hadn't given her up? Maybe it would be worth trying to find out. And if they could lead her to him…

Maybe she could finally stop.


	3. Chapter 3: Salvation

Part 3: Salvation

"_Melody! Child of water! Wake_!"

She stirred, blinking sleepily. "What's it?" She called, then gave up and rolled over.

"_There's no time child! Wake up!_" There was a strange smell… like something was burning…

The voice of the mist was suddenly right in her ear: "_Hurry_!". Her eyes snapped open as the word was accompanied by a strong gust of hot wind on her face. She screamed. The flames licked at the edge of her bedroll, gnawing away at the fabric. She scrambled back, coughing as thick smoke met her lungs but the flames roared behind her too. The entire room was filled with fire, the heat pressed on her from all sides, how had she slept through this?

A large beam suddenly fell, missing her by only a few feet, crackling and hissing as it struck the floor. She fell over backwards, trying to get away, to get to the exit.

"_No! This way child_!" The mist overtook her suddenly, surrounding her entire head with dancing golden particles. She was momentarily distracted by the sounds they made… the singing of time…

Another beam crashed to the ground and she jumped.

"_Come._" The mist began to pull her gently but urgently down the long room away from the falling beams. They crossed the floor with quick strides until they reached a low window that the flames had not yet reached. The glass was missing and the smoke that was trying to fill the room was rushing out of it.

The mist detached itself from her, leaving her head sorrowfully empty. "_Go child. They've found you. I've scrambled your timeline so it's harder for them to track you down. You might meet people in an odd order but it shouldn't impact your life too much. Now go, you must get away_."

She coughed as she tried to speak. "Where?" She managed to croak out.

"_Somewhere you can be safe."_ The mist replied. "_You'll know when you've found it._" She placed her hands on the window ledge, preparing to hoist herself out but then turned back around.

"Wait…Aren't… you coming?"

Sadness emanated from the cloud. "_This is the last time I can help you like this_." She blinked, fighting back tears. It was leaving her. Why did everyone leave her?

"_You're dying. Remember what I told you about when you die?_" She nodded, coughing. "_Then good luck young Pond. And remember: find your parents and you'll eventually find him._"

She stifled another cough. "Will… I find you… too?"

The mist paused. "_This is the last time you will ever see me. Do not mention me. Do not even think of me. But remember, always remember what I've told you: you have a choice._"

"But who are you?" The mist was fading but something swirled deep within it. A second before it faded, the mist gathered itself into a face. A face that was both refreshingly new and terrifyingly familiar. Then it vanished.

"_Now run!_" The dying voice commanded.

Still in shock, young Melody turned and stumbled upwards towards the surface, towards the air coughing up smoke and blinking tears from her eyes.

* * *

"It's quite alright…" She told the nice man with the cart, her voice cracking from all the smoke she had inhaled below. "I'm dying…" She could feel her life slipping away with every labored breath exhaled from her lungs. But she wouldn't accept it. "But I can fix that… it's easy…" She raised her hands. "See?"

Just as the woman in the mist had promised, they began to glow. The energy ran all through her, brushing the soot from her lungs, easing the ache in her bones. She began to laugh. The feeling traveled all over her body, coating her in sunlight and fire, rushing through her veins. Peeling her skin away and putting new skin in its place. It felt so good…

She threw back her head and the fire consumed her brain. Everything she had been melted away, eaten by the fire that healed her. She focused on new life, a new person, a new beginning.

The fire flared out one last time, then faded to a dull burn that tingled along her limbs and waited in small pockets in her veins should she need it again. She stumbled on her new legs and almost fell over. When the alley stopped spinning, she raised her hands and slowly touched her face. Nothing was familiar. Everything was new.

The child lowered her hands. She wasn't Melody Pond anymore. Now she was Mels. And she was going to find her parents.

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Thanks for reading!

Peace!

wolfchic011

7/21/12


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